Why Feed the Beast SHOULD launch without RedPower or Thaumcraft

I'm seeing a TON of complaints. Almost all of these complaints are concerning the lack of inclusion of RedPower (and occasionally Thaumcraft) in Feed the Beast's initial launch. While I cannot speak on behalf of the devs, I believe I understand the thought process behind this decision.

Simply put: It is better to release a massive, functional modpack (32 mods) that is 95% complete than to not release it until it is 100% complete.

The reasoning behind this is completely understandable. Do any of the folks complaining about RedPower not being included know when the last official update to RedPower was? I'll tell you: 1.2.5. This isn't because the mod's author, Eloraam, is lazy. She's been working her butt off on it and Forge, but as Gabe Newell famously quoted, "These things...they take time." RedPower is very complex and deep and cannot be updated quickly. That's fine, she's doing all she can (for free, mind you), and we all look forward to its release.

But to think that Feed the Beast's forward momentum should completely halt due to one mod's incompleteness is utterly ridiculous. Imagine the following scenario: FTB decides to launch at the beginning of 1.3, but the community complains about the lack of RedPower. "Wait a week, it'll be done!" they all say. So FTB decides not to launch until RedPower is finished. In this imaginary scenario, FTB would still not be released.

The community really needs to understand that despite how amazing RedPower and Thaumcraft ARE, there are 32 other phenomenal mods in FTB that are fully ready to be enjoyed. I spent 8 hours last night roaming the massive treetops of the Twilight Forest, getting lost in a maze, and then nearly being kill by three different things I won't spoil for you. I then returned to my overworld, placed all of my ores into Industrial Craft 2 machines to increase my efficiency and productivity, then opened my linking book to explore a nauseated Age in Mystcraft. I stumbled around and promptly fled home to work on my Buildcraft piping system for organization. All of my items are in Iron Chests.

My playing experience is already radically better than the few mods in Tekkit or the bland (in my opinion) world of Vanilla. I was playing with four other friends on a private server, all of us laughing hysterically because I hid cicadas from Twilight forest in the ground all around our base. The noise was deafening, we were all having a blast, and that would not have been possible if the beta for Feed the Beast hadn't launched.

My TL;DR point is this: Please stop complaining. Please stop asking Feed the Beast to "delay the launch." The admins behind the modpack are fortunately smart enough to realize that "delaying" will quickly become "never releasing" if the modpack cannot launch unless 100% of the desired mods are fully ready. That will never happen with a game like Minecraft.

Stop complaining, start enjoying. RedPower will come, Thaumcraft will come, but in the meantime, let's all stop whining and start enjoying all of the hard work the mod authors and the modpack creators have put into this amazing gaming experience. The Beast MUST be fed, and it's certainly not going to wait another week (or longer).

Disclaimer - This thread is written with absolute respect and awe for RedPower and Thaumcraft's creators. Those two deserve every bit of praise possible for how hard they work at perfecting their additions while still optimizing their code for a better experience overall. Quit complaining and go THANK them instead.

That's fine, and I included a TL;DR for the supremely lazy/busy. I just want the more active community members browsing these forums to see this issue from the modpack developer's side. Hopefully that will cut down on the negativity a bit.

i'll admit i started of with tekkit and not knowing the controversy surrounding tekkit and the mod developers. But then i found Feed the beast and started siting in on slowpoke's twitch streams along with the rest of the team from FTB and i can say i would rather they release now -red power than to wait. although i like red powers tubes more at least i am not playing on a far outdated minecraft that was missing out on alot of good content. i cant tell them enough how much fun im having playing FTB even though its still in beta atm.

the only thing i wish they would include is a way to update the server and map as i run my own small FTB server for a few friends.

100% agree. People don't realize how much work goes into coding and bug fixing. The changes from 1.2.5 to 1.3.2 were astronomical and now, along with trying to finish that, the things that changed between 1.4.2 and 1.4.3(4) are a lot bigger on the inside than they look from out here. We need to give the devs their space, some appreciation, and all the diamonds on the internets for their UNPAID catering to our every whim.

Another thing that I know Slowpoke and Co. are aware of: Stalling launch will make people lose interest. The impatient customers will go somewhere else. That can't happen. Period. Otherwise, all the work is for nothing.

Seriously, these people need medals and stars named after them for what they go though being yelled at by whiners.

Stalling launch will make people lose interest. The impatient customers will go somewhere else. That can't happen. Period. Otherwise, all the work is for nothing.

Click to expand...

I think this is the main issue. While an argument could be made that some disappointment will be had for those who read that FTB including RedPower and Thaumcraft, there's still the chance of both mods (and Xycraft as well) being fully ready for FTB's official launch.

Regardless, the amount of balanced, supported, and co-existing mod content included in FTB's beta launcher right now is astounding and an absolute BLAST to unpack.

Actually, I'm pretty happy that RP2, EE3 and TC2 aren't gonna be in the modpack for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love these mods and I've been played modded minecraft for such a long time I can barely remember how vanilla Minecraft works. But I'm playing the beta right now and, after softening Greg's Tech difficult, I'm getting familiar with the three "main" new mod, GT Factorization and Thermal Expansion. With RP2 installed, I would probably got straight to my usual setups and contraption, now we all have the opportunity to open our mind and discover new ways to become awfully rich of UU and diamonds without passin through the usual patterns.

I miss Redpower and Thaumcraft as much as the next guy, I installed the Logistics Pipes SMP port and have been using that to take care of my sorting needs for now. The great thing about those two mods in particular though, is that they're still VERY relevant late game. You can install both mods late, late, into any world and you really won't be missing anything.

With a mod like Industrialcraft, if you somehow avoided that until the end-game you've basically voided half the tech tree (batboxes, batpacks, iron drills, bronze armor, water mills, generators, all the low tier machines, etc). With Redpower 99% of even the lowest tier items still have almost infinite uses even when you're absolutely flooded with resources and armed/armored to the teeth. A lowly timer or other red wire logic gate is always useful, block breakers, deployers, transposers are good forever, even the gem tools are great for enchanting.

Thaumcraft just plain adds fun stuff, who cares if pipes work quicker, I want freakin' golems running around doing my bidding and big demon fireboxes cooking my stones for me; not to mention all the fun tools. Never too late for that stuff.

That's a good point, RivingtonDown. I'm actually a bit confused by all the negative reaction to RedPower and Thaumcraft not being present in the beta launcher. You're very right in stating that their presence in the game is not negated by how many hours you've put in. Thaumcraft especially seems just like a very, very cool addition and expansion, not a necessity (unless one lives on magic characters in most video games).

Regardless, I'm sure they'll be in the official modpack release or very soon thereafter. I am very excited about having Project Tables again. ; )

I assume the negative reactions to not have Thaumcraft or RP2 for the launch is world gen in the over world. Sure, make a mystcraft world or go out to new chunks. But I can vouch for myself and prob a few others... The world gen is nice to have from the get go.

I assume the negative reactions to not have Thaumcraft or RP2 for the launch is world gen in the over world. Sure, make a mystcraft world or go out to new chunks. But I can vouch for myself and prob a few others... The world gen is nice to have from the get go.

Click to expand...

I do agree that "just go further" and Mystcraft are easy - but not helpful - answers to the worldgen issues. in my opinion, though, I'd rather have worldgen issues than not have a modpack at all. Maybe I'm just selfish.

meh weve gone without redpower for a few months now, so its not really all that bad, and as for thaumcraft ive never really been a fan of it, the guy makes amazing graphical effects and from what ive heard his next release will completly outstrip his old version in that respect, but other than that i havent found to add all that much gameplay, except perhaps needing to burn diamonds for vis so i can use it to fix taint issues, which is why i stopped playing it.

meh weve gone without redpower for a few months now, so its not really all that bad, and as for thaumcraft ive never really been a fan of it, the guy makes amazing graphical effects and from what ive heard his next release will completly outstrip his old version in that respect, but other than that i havent found to add all that much gameplay, except perhaps needing to burn diamonds for vis so i can use it to fix taint issues, which is why i stopped playing it.

Click to expand...

Well, he really is "outstripping" his old version so to speak. If it weren't for the fact that a couple of familiar toys like Nitor, the Magic Carpet, and the Portable Hole were making appearances in in Thaumcraft 3 you could go so far as to think of it as a completely different mod.

The whole concept of Taint and Vis are different now, in fact there is no such thing as Taint or Corruption. There are nodes that float around the world - you can see them with goggles - that contain magic (Vis) that you tap into every time you use one of your magic tools, which creates a flux in the aura. These nodes are slowly recharged by surrounding nodes but if you weaken them too much, too quickly, then wisps will break through the node and start attacking you. Killing the wisps will release their essence back into the aura and help balance the node back out. So with that, besides the fact that there's no Taint, Vis is no longer a liquid (no more piping it around anymore). Along with those changes and additions like golems to carry your items around (think like logistic pipe functionality), tons of multiblock structures, and a 100% completely revamped research system it really is a whole new beast.

meh still sounds like alot of functionality i wont spend the time reasearching, ive never liked having to do in game reasearch, well there was one game, but that one it was a minigame that you had to play, with matching chemical compounds, for every level you won you got a new compound you could combine ingame, it worked really well.